From camping to cooking, six boundary-pushing tech innovations
From a solar-powered outdoor oven to robotic lawnmowers, the latest in green technology sets you up for a future-facing daily life.
Sunny side up
A new hybrid cooker that has dinner sorted – rain, hail or shine.
GOSUN’S solar-powered Fusion oven can bake or steam, reaching temperatures of up to 288.C. The standalone unit traps heat inside its insulated vacuum tube. And it’s a hybrid cooker, so you can use battery power if you’re camping and cooking at night.
Cooking times vary with the amount of sunlight: steamed veggies take 20 minutes under full sun, or up to an hour if cloudy. Meats take from 55 minutes to 2.5 hours, again depending on cloud cover.
GoSun says the oven will cook quickly as long as you see a defined shadow from your hand. It fits enough to feed up to six, weighs 6.4 kilograms and collapses for easy carrying.
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Easy rider
The next generation of e-bikes balance power with stylish practicality.
This Spanish-made Orbea e-bike is a quality city commuter with a Bosch Active Line mid-drive motor and a 250-watt system with Bosch electrics. It has 20-inch wheels, a big front basket for carrying anything from groceries to a small dog, and it handles nicely.
Orbea has implemented an intuitive system for deciding how much power you get. Torque sensors monitor pedal strokes and tell the motor how much electrical assistance to provide.
The mid-drive motor located near the pedals is a better option than the more common placement of motors on wheel hubs. It balances the weight better and without a hub motor, it is easier to change a tyre if necessary.
The Katu-e 30 has Shimano hydraulic disc brakes, a removable battery, and both front and back lights are connected to the bike’s electrics. You can fit a pack rack and there’s a double centre-mounted kickstand, so the bike doesn’t lean either way.
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Light-bulb moment
Multicoloured lighting displays look beautiful but opt for LED to save on power.
Canadian company Nanoleaf, founded in 2012 as a crowdfunded project on kickstarter.com, offers imaginative and decorative LED lighting panels in kit form.
You link panels together and then stick them to a wall with the adhesive blocks provided. Linking the panels also connects the power.
You can change colours, set up multicoloured flashing sequences and even have your panels pulse to the rhythm of music in the room.
Nanoleaf sells differently shaped panel kits and sequences are controlled using the Nanoleaf app or a voice assistant. .
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Gardening leave
Robotic lawn mowers have their advantages: they don’t require pushing, they are electric and they’re super quiet, meaning you can set them to cut grass at night.
The RM100 is Victa’s first robotic battery-powered mower and consists of the mower, charging dock and 120 metres of perimeter wire you lay permanently in the ground.
This perimeter transmits a magnetic pulse that gives the mower its bearings. No pulse and it stops.
The mower has a sensor so it will seek to navigate obstacles, but if you want to protect your prized flower bed, you can lay more wire. It also has a console for setting a mowing schedule.
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Cool change
Scheduling your air conditioner to pump out cool or warm air when you need it saves time and energy, as does making sure it’s turned off at night or when away.
Many units aren’t yet smart enough to allow remote, scheduled and voice-control functionality, which is where a Sensibo Air sensor unit comes in. It turns a dumb air conditioner into a connected one you can control from anywhere in the world via your phone.
You use your remote control to teach Sensibo the infrared signals for basics, such as switching on or off and changing from heating to cooling. You then position the Sensibo sensor where it can flash the correct infrared codes to the air conditioner, in response to voice commands using Amazon Alexa, Google Home or Apple HomeKit, or the Sensibo app.
You can also add air conditioning control commands to automated smart-home routines, such as making sure the AC is switched off when you go to bed.
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Six boundary-pushing tech innovations
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Home run
Home batteries are a vital part of modern solar installations, but batteries produced by Australian green-energy firm Lavo are different to the lithium-ion versions made by the likes of Tesla and Sonnen.
Lavo has instead created a hydrogen energy storage system with a hydrogen fuel cell that uses sunlight from rooftop solar and air to generate hydrogen which is then stored in Lavo’s metal hydride cell.
When electricity is needed, the protons and electrons are separated. Fuel cells are gaining popularity and are already fitted into some electric vehicles and trains.
Lavo is finalising certification in Australia and there are already pre-orders from more than 45 countries, plus a waiting list for the latest model.